


Premonitions

by DefiFox



Series: A Samhain Saga [1]
Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: Character Death, Halloween, Occult Biology Lessons, Pain, Prophetic Dreams, Samhain, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiFox/pseuds/DefiFox
Summary: Dreams are a great way to get in touch with humans and warn them they're in grave danger.~ Hecate
Series: A Samhain Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932034
Kudos: 13





	Premonitions

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you're all ready for Halloween, guys :D

The contents of the golden cup swirl menacingly, having an eerie likeliness to blood. Entranced by the liquids, he watches them slosh against the edge, never spill onto a floor that doesn’t appear to exist in this domain. His eyes follow the small crimson whirlpool, round and round again. Its somehow perfectly smooth liquid exudes a thickly grey mist that drifts up his nostrils and into his eyes, until it is all that fills his conscience. Then, everything turns black.

Dazedly, Steven tries to look around.

Darkness.

His stomach is churning anxiously, contents twirling around like blood in a golden cup. When Steven tries to reach for his memories, an explanation, perhaps, he finds his head filled with mist. Grey, heavy, foggy mist making it hard to think. 

It’s unlike anything Steven has ever felt. His body feels too light in this realm, making everything around him unbearably heavy. The air itself seems to have turned on him, pushing him down with all its might.

Speaking of which, no matter how determinedly Steven tries to stay afoot, there is no ground to stand on. He’s not falling, he’s being shoved into himself from all sides by some kind of distorted mist, which seems to be living a life on its own. Even the mist in his head is joining the fray, consuming his brain with the power of a black hole. The pain is excruciating, coming from everywhere around and even within him.

Steven opens his mouth to scream.

Thick tendrils of mist fill his airways, suffocating him beyond sanity. Writhing and buzzing inside him, the sensation would have made him puke his guts out if he could. They crawl through his veins, making his body swell and implode on itself, shaking uncontrollably with force. Slowly, pain starts making way for numbness, heaviness. He is becoming the mist.

As he loses all control of his body, Steven wonders if he’s in hell. 

A cool hand is placed where his forehead used to be. The strangest thing happens, then- even stranger than his complete destruction only moments -or was it an eternity?- ago. Like a weed being pulled from the ground, Steven feels as his being is pulled out from the thick mist of indistinguishable spirits. And around the solid, physical touch, his body starts to reassemble. 

The first thing to leave Steven’s newly formed lips is a strangled sound. As the remnants of pain clad as smoke leave through his nostrils, eyes and mouth, his body starts to function somewhat normally again. The air is not so heavy, and Steven feels like at least his physical being is where it belongs in time and space.

The location, however, is a story on its own. It appears to be lit by starlight, though the sky above shows only black. Far up, a small wisp of the moon flickers uncertainly.  
The solid ground underneath his feet is mostly flattened earth. Around him, it stretches as far as the eye can see, yet Steven feels strangely enclosed. Like there are walls, somewhere. 

The other, perhaps strangest feat about this place is the- erm, decor. Around him there are all kinds of familiar buildings and places, scattered about like toys in a child’s room. Steven recognizes the LEC studio, his elementary school, a particular church he visited in Madrid with his family, the fountain he used to play around with his friends when he was younger, and many other things, some hidden too much by lingering fog to be recognizable. 

“Steven.”

Steven’s eyes fly to the apparition in front of him. A woman is looking at him patiently, her black eyes piercing through him. In one hand a large torch blazes, sparks flying everywhere and dissolving. She’s holding it neglectfully, like one would hold an empty wrapper.  
The knife in her other hand looks like something from a badly rendered movie. Its blade is the same dark grey as the mist, swirling around restlessly. There are spirits in the blade, Steven discerns with a sickening sense. Spirits that used to be people. 

Steven forces himself to look up at her. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

A golden headpiece glimmers atop her raven black hair as she leans back. Her face seems expressionless, though it’s hard to tell with the black eyes. “I know all I need to know about you, Steven. I am Hecate, goddess of many things, one of which includes crossroads.” A royal chair has appeared underneath her, and she sits down regally. Steven finds himself following her example mindlessly. 

Although a thousand questions are itching to be asked, Steven has a feeling he would be speaking out of turn right now. Instead he elects to wait, and is rewarded soon enough. 

The torch’s flame flickers high, sending sparks everywhere as Hecate continues speaking, unfazed. “Crossroads are places where an individual must choose, places that can determine the path of their fate.” The knife has disappeared from her pale hand. 

“You are at a crossroads now, Steven, and it will be up to you to choose your path. Will you lay out an easy path for yourself, or will you struggle and writhe to attempt to escape the inevitable? Only you can decide.”

Little beads of sweat trickle down Steven’s neck. Has it been this warm the entire time? Perhaps it’s the torch, now burning almost twice as bright as it did initially.  
Hecate’s words are.. troubling, to say the least, partially because Steven can’t even begin to make sense of them. He knows who she is, faintly, from some story Kacper told him a long time ago.

“Miss Hecate. What will I need to choose about?”

Hecate chuckles. The sound reverberates through reality, and Steven shivers. He’s not so warm anymore. “Child, I cannot tell you. It would mess with things, make everything so much more complicated. No, you need to figure it out on your own.”

“Then why did you bring me here, if I may ask?” Steven controls a spark of frustration that wants to burn through him. He’s never been one to lose his temper, and it might not be the greatest idea to break that habit in front of a goddess. 

“You?” Hecate rises, and turns his back on him. She speaks thoughtfully, like she did forget for a moment why she’s tortured and scared the living hell out of Steven. “Well, to warn you, of course. That no matter what you choose, where you go,” she continues as she twirls a bright purple flower around her fingers, “you will end up at the same place.”

Steven follows Hecate, rising from his chair. “So, did you bring me here to laugh at me? Why would you summon me just to tell me that I can’t control where I end up?”

Hecate distances herself from him, walking towards a small garden. As she moves gracefully through the air, the large golden keys suspended from her belt rustle softly against the fabric. No loud or sharp sounds seem to exist here, other than his own voice. Even Hecate’s voice sounds like a mist-coated song. 

“Child,” she sing-songs, “naïve, young, mortal. There are so many things you do not know.”  
For a moment, mist covers her frame. Then it’s gone and Hecate turns around to face Steven, with three heads. The faces of a dog, horse and lion look at him simultaneously, making Steven want to run and hide. It’s like they can derive any secret from him by just looking.

The dog is the first one to speak, or so Steven assumes. Its mouth opens and closes as a voice comes from everywhere around him. “Three roads lie ahead, one of which you shall choose.”

With a huff, the horse takes over. “Every path brings its unique challenges, which only you can face.”

The lion finishes, “But at the end of every path will lie the same destination. Do you understand?” they ask in unison.

Feeling even more confused than before, Steven nods. Everything is foggy, and he has no idea what’s going on anymore. He blinks, and Hecate’s face is back to its former state. She almost looks human, in comparison to what she had going on a second ago. 

Hecate flicks her fingers, and a small purple flower appears. She smells it with a distant smile before turning to him.

“Steven,” she says kindly, “You need to remember my face. The crossroads alone wouldn’t have been important enough for me to bring you here, but the destination is. Great danger will come.”

As his mind processes her words, Steven finds his gaze being pulled down to that purple flower, still in her hand. She twirls it around like it’s a fun toy, but something is telling him that flower is incredibly powerful. And most definitely dangerous.

Hecate smiles, almost disarmingly. “I believe you know this one as Aconite, though some called it Hecateis a few centuries ago.” She waves her hand, indicating the negligible passing of time. “It’s gotten many nicknames through the years, like monkhood, wolf’s-bane, devil’s helmet, and even queen of poison. It’s one of my favorites, and extremely poisonous, if you hadn’t figured out.”  
She chuckles.

“Would you like to hold it?” Seeing his taken aback look, Hecate quickly adds, “it’s harmless while you’re here.”

Resolutely, Steven shakes his head. No dangerous flowers for him, thank you very much. “Miss, you say ‘here’. Where are we?”

“That is a good question. This is a place that does not exist in the way you know. It’s a spiritual manifestation of our beings, created so I could speak with you.”

Excluding her scary form, scary knife, blazing torch, creepy mist and puzzling manner of speech, Hecate seems like quite a friendly goddess. Not that Steven has any experience with goddesses, but she hasn’t directly threatened or tried to kill him yet, and surely that means something. “So, this place can be anything I want it to be?”

Hecate nods. “In theory, yes. But you wouldn’t be able to manipulate your surroundings if you tried. It takes an eternity of practice, and even I wouldn’t have gotten far without my heritage.”

Guessing she means her powers when referring to her heritage, Steven nods slowly. A sudden feeling of a hand grabbing his has him looking down, only to see air. The feeling doesn’t fade, though, and Steven finds himself unable to let go.

“Come.” Hecate drifts off. Steven is obliged to follow, the ghostly, invisible hand dragging him along. 

Time doesn’t seem too consequential here- in a matter of seconds, the scenery around Steven has completely shifted into some kind of forest. It consists mostly of ashen trees, blooming leaves illuminated by Hecate’s torch as they pass by.

Their journey ends abruptly in front of a centuries old looking tree. Steven finds himself free to move again, as Hecate reaches up and picks a red sort of fruit from the tree. “This is the yew tree. It’s the symbol of eternal life and associated with death and rebirth. In some places it is believed that the tree will send its roots through a corpse’s mouth, so that its spirit can be freed. Hence the association with rebirth.”  
She moves her arms around, imitating the roots moving around with an air of importance, like it’s something to be studied for an exam.

Thinking of Hecate as an occult biology teacher makes Steven chuckle to himself. It’s a strange thing to be lectured by a goddess, but her lessons are interesting enough.

“As I said, the yew tree is also associated with rebirth. When the central trunk dies, a new tree can grow inside its rotting core. Regaining life like a phoenix rising from its ashes, one might say.

“Lastly, there’s death, something that will help you on your way back. Yew berries contain highly poisonous seeds, and the right amounts make them very lethal.”

Steven’s heart starts hammering in his chest. “Sorry- what did you just say?”

Hecate’s chuckle does not sound so nice to him now, even if it’s exactly the same as before. “Oh, child. You’re not really here, I hope you know that by now. In order to wake up in your proper form, you need to leave this place permanently. You need to die here.”

Her dark purple dress dances in the ghostly breeze. It seems delighted at the idea of Steven dying, somehow. Steven brings himself to meet her eyes. He knows she’s speaking the truth, and he forces the fear out of his system. “Okay.”

A kind smile spreads over Hecate’s face, her eyes glimmering faintly. “Good. You resisting would’ve been.. inconvenient.” She plucks a handful of berries and crushes them separately between her fingers, storing the red-coated seeds in a small jar. 

Steven swallows hard as she adds a variety of other herbs and brightly colored flowers he doesn’t recognize. His eyes are so fixated on the movements of her hands that the sound of her voice almost makes him jump. “Oh, and child. Don’t worry about this hurting, everything will go smoothly and quickly.”

Steven breathes a sigh of relief. Knowing that does calm some of his nerves.

Hecate turns around, blocking Steven’s view of her actions. He waits patiently, aware that time isn’t all that important here. Her small hums as she works echo through the forest, bringing it to life.

A few minutes pass before she turns around, a small golden cup in her hands. The poison inside it has a dark red color, the complete picture nagging at Steven’s mind. It seems familiar somehow, but his memory is too foggy to figure it out.

Wordlessly, Hecate hands him the cup. Steven’s hands move on their own as he accepts it and brings it to his lips. 

A moment passes. Hecate watches him with a curious gaze. Steven opens his lips.

He tips the cup, and a thick, sweetish liquid flows down his throat. His vision starts to blur at the edges, and his body goes limp. Hecate was right, there’s no pain at all.

As his vision is going completely dark, Steven vaguely hears Hecate say one last thing. “We’ll meet again soon, child.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudo's are greatly appreciated!  
> (Also, please scream with me about how op autumn and spooky season are, seriously the highlights of my year)


End file.
